The Mammoth Book of Zombies

by Stephen Jones

  There was a hurried exchange with the ASM and an apologetic negative from Ryan.

  "Well get it. And I don't want any complaints from anyone, it's too late in the day. Last night's run was a wake, not a performance. The cues took forever; the business was ragged. I'm going to cut, and it's not going to be very palatable."

  It wasn't. The complaints came, warning or no, the arguments, the compromises, the sour faces and muttered insults. Galloway would have rather been hanging by his toes from a trapeze than manoeuvring fourteen highly-strung people through a play two-thirds of them scarcely understood, and the other third couldn't give a monkey's about. It was nerve-wracking.

  It was made worse because all the time he had the prickly sense of being watched, though the auditorium was empty from Gods to front stalls. Maybe Lichfield had a spy hole somewhere, he thought, then condemned the idea as the first signs of budding paranoia.

  At last, lunch.

  Calloway knew where he'd find Diane, and he was prepared for the scene he had to play with her. Accusations, tears, reassurance, tears again, reconciliation. Standard format.

  He knocked on the Star's door.

  "Who is it?"

  Was she crying already, or talking through a glass of something comforting?

  "It's me."

  "Oh."

  "Can I come in?"

  "Yes."

  She had a bottle of vodka, good vodka, and a glass. No tears as yet.

  "I'm useless, aren't I?" she said, almost as soon as he'd closed the door. Her eyes begged for contradiction.

  "Don't be silly," he hedged.

  "I could never get the hang of Shakespeare," she pouted, as though it were the Bard's fault. "All those bloody words." The squall was on the horizon, he could see it mustering.

  "It's all right," he lied, putting his arm around her. "You just need a little time."

  Her face clouded.

  "We open tomorrow," she said flatly. The point was difficult to refute.

  "They'll tear me apart, won't they?"

  He wanted to say no, but his tongue had a fit of honesty.

  "Yes. Unless - "

  "I'll never work again, will I? Harry talked me into this, that damn half-witted Jew: good for my reputation, he said. Bound to give me a bit more clout, he said. What does he know? Takes his ten bloody per cent and leaves me holding the baby. I'm the one who looks the damn fool aren't I?"

  At the thought of looking a fool, the storm broke. No light shower this: it was a cloudburst or nothing. He did what he could, but it was difficult. She was sobbing so loudly his pearls of wisdom were drowned out. So he kissed her a little, as any decent director was bound to do, and (miracle upon miracle) that seemed to do the trick. He applied the technique with a little more gusto, his hands straying to her breasts, ferreting under her blouse for her nipples and teasing them between thumb and forefinger.

  It worked wonders. There were hints of sun between the clouds now; she sniffed and unbuckled his belt, letting his heat dry out the last of the rain. His fingers were finding the lacy edge of her panties, and she was sighing as he investigated her, gently but not too gently, insistent but never too insistent. Somewhere along the line she knocked over the vodka bottle but neither of them cared to stop and right it, so it sloshed on to the floor off the edge of the table, counterpointing her instructions, his gasps.

  Then the bloody door opened, and a draught blew up between them, cooling the point at issue.

  Calloway almost turned round, then realized he was unbuckled, and stared instead into the mirror behind Diane to see the intruder's face. It was Lichfield. He was looking straight at Calloway, his face impassive.

  "I'm sorry, I should have knocked."

  His voice was as smooth as whipped cream, betraying nary a tremor of embarrassment. Calloway wedged himself away, buckled up his belt and turned to Lichfield, silently cursing his burning cheeks.

  "Yes… it would have been polite," he said.

  "Again, my apologies. I wanted a word with - " his eyes, so deep-set they were unfathomable, were on Diane "- your star," he said.

  Calloway could practically feel Diane's ego expand at the word. The approach confounded him: had Lichfield undergone a volte-face? Was he coming here, the repentant admirer, to kneel at the feet of greatness?

  "I would appreciate a word with the lady in private, if that were possible," the mellow voice went on.

  "Well, we were just - "

  "Of course," Diane interrupted. "Just allow me a moment, would you?"

  She was immediately on top of the situation, tears forgotten.

  "I'll be just outside," said Lichfield, already taking his leave.

  Before he had closed the door behind him Diane was in front of the mirror, tissue-wrapped finger skirting her eye to divert a rivulet of mascara.

  "Well," she was cooing, "how lovely to have a well-wisher. Do you know who he is?"

  "His name's Lichfield," Calloway told her. "He used to be a trustee of the theatre."

  "Maybe he wants to offer me something."

  "I doubt it."

  "Oh don't be such a drag, Terence," she snarled. "You just can't bear to have anyone else get any attention, can you?"

  "My mistake."

  She peered at her eyes.

  "How do I look?" she asked.

  "Fine."

  "I'm sorry about before."

  "Before?"

  "You know."

  "Oh… yes."

  "I'll see you in the pub, eh?"

  He was summarily dismissed apparently, his function as lover or confidant no longer required.

  In the chilly corridor outside the dressing room Lichfield was waiting patiently. Though the lights were better here than on the ill-lit stage, and he was closer now than he'd been the night before, Calloway could still not quite make out the face under the wide brim. There was something - what was the idea buzzing in his head? -something artificial about Lichfield's features. The flesh of his face didn't move as interlocking system of muscle and tendon, it was too stiff, too pink, almost like scar-tissue.

  "She's not quite ready," Calloway told him.

  "She's a lovely woman," Lichfield purred.

  "Yes."

  "I don't blame you…"

  "Urn."

  "She's no actress though."

  "You're not going to interfere are you, Lichfield? I won't let you."

  "Perish the thought."

  The voyeuristic pleasure Lichfield had plainly taken in his embarrassment made Calloway less respectful than he'd been.

  "I won't have you upsetting her - "

  "My interests are your interests, Terence. All I want to do is see this production prosper, believe me. Am I likely, under those circumstances, to alarm your Leading Lady? I'll be as meek as a lamb, Terence."

  "Whatever you are," came the testy reply, "you're no lamb."

  The smile appeared again on Lichfield's face, the tissue round his mouth barely stretching to accommodate his expression.

  Calloway retired to the pub with that predatory sickle of teeth fixed in his mind, anxious for no reason he could focus upon.

  In the mirrored cell of her dressing room Diane Duvall was just about ready to play her scene.

  "You may come in now, Mr Lichfield," she announced.

  He was in the doorway before the last syllable of his name had died on her lips.

  "Miss Duvall," he bowed slightly in deference to her. She smiled; so courteous. "Will you please forgive my blundering in earlier on?"

  She looked coy; it always melted men.

  "Mr Calloway - " she began.

  "A very insistent young man, I think."

  "Yes."

  "Not above pressing his attentions on his Leading Lady, perhaps?"

  She frowned a little, a dancing pucker where the plucked arches of her brows converged.

  "I'm afraid so."

  "Most unprofessional of him," Lichfield said. "But forgive me - an understandable ardour."

&n
bsp; She moved upstage of him, towards the lights of her mirror, and turned, knowing they would back-light her hair more flatteringly.

  "Well, Mr Lichfield, what can I do for you?"

  "This is frankly a delicate matter," said Lichfield. "The bitter fact is - how shall I put this? - your talents are not ideally suited to this production. Your style lacks delicacy."

  There was a silence for two beats. She sniffed, thought about the inference of the remark, and then moved out of centre-stage towards the door. She didn't like the way this scene had begun. She was expecting an admirer, and instead she had a critic on her hands.

  "Get out!" she said, her voice like slate.

  "Miss Duvall - "

  "You heard me."

  "You're not comfortable as Viola, are you?" Lichfield continued, as though the star had said nothing.

  "None of your bloody business," she spat back.

  "But it is. I saw the rehearsals. You were bland, unpersuasive. The comedy is flat, the reunion scene - it should break our hearts - is leaden."

  "I don't need your opinion, thank you."

  "You have no style - "

  "Piss off."

  "No presence and no style. I'm sure on the television you are radiance itself, but the stage requires a special truth, a soulfulness you, frankly, lack."

  The scene was hotting up. She wanted to hit him, but she couldn't find the proper motivation. She couldn't take this faded poseur seriously. He was more musical comedy than melodrama, with his neat grey gloves, and his neat grey cravat. Stupid, waspish queen, what did he know about acting?

  "Get out before I call the Stage Manager," she said, but he stepped between her and the door.

  A rape scene? Was that what they were playing? Had he got the hots for her? God forbid.

  "My wife," he was saying, "has played Viola - "

  "Good for her."

  "- and she feels she could breathe a little more life into the role than you."

  "We open tomorrow," she found herself replying, as though defending her presence. Why the hell was she trying to reason with him; barging in here and making these terrible remarks. Maybe because she was just a little afraid. His breath, close to her now, smelt of expensive chocolate.

  "She knows the role by heart."

  "The part's mine. And I'm doing it. I'm doing it even if I'm the worst Viola in theatrical history, all right?"

  She was trying to keep her composure, but it was difficult. Something about him made her nervous. It wasn't violence she feared from him: but she feared something.

  "I'm afraid I have already promised the part to my wife."

  "What?" she goggled at his arrogance.

  "And Constantia will play the role."

  She laughed at the name. Maybe this was high comedy after all. Something from Sheridan or Wilde, arch, catty stuff. But he spoke with such absolute certainty. Constantia will play the role; as if it was all cut and dried.

  "I'm not discussing this any longer, Buster, so if your wife wants to play Viola she'll have to do it in the fucking street. All right?"

  "She opens tomorrow."

  "Are you deaf, or stupid, or both?"

  Control, an inner voice told her, you're overplaying, losing your grip on the scene. Whatever scene this is.

  He stepped towards her, and the mirror lights caught the face beneath the brim full on. She hadn't looked carefully enough when he first made his appearance: now she saw the deeply-etched lines, the gougings around his eyes and his mouth. It wasn't flesh, she was sure of it. He was wearing latex appliances, and they were badly glued in place. Her hand all but twitched with the desire to snatch at it and uncover his real face.

  Of course. That was it. The scene she was playing: the Unmasking.

  "Let's see what you look like," she said, and her hand was at his cheek before he could stop her, his smile spreading wider as she attacked. This is what he wants, she thought, but it was too late for regrets or apologies. Her fingertips had found the line of the mask at the edge of his eye-socket, and curled round to take a better hold. She yanked.

  The thin veil of latex came away, and his true physiognomy was exposed for the world to see. Diane tried to back away, but his hand was in her hair. All she could do was look up into that ail-but fleshless face. A few withered strands of muscle curled here and there, and a hint of a beard hung from a leathery flap at his throat, but all living tissue had long since decayed. Most of his face was simply bone: stained and worn.

  "I was not," said the skull, "embalmed. Unlike Constantia."

  The explanation escaped Diane. She made no sound of protest, which the scene would surely have justified. All she could summon was a whimper as his hand-hold tightened, and he hauled her head back.

  "We must make a choice, sooner or later," said Lichfield, his breath smelling less like chocolate than profound putrescence, "between serving ourselves and serving our art."

  She didn't quite understand.

  "The dead must choose more carefully than the living. We cannot waste our breath, if you'll excuse the phrase, on less than the purest delights. You don't want art, I think. Do you?"

  She shook her head, hoping to God that was the expected response.

  "You want the life of the body, not the life of the imagination. And you may have it."

  "Thank… you."

  "If you want it enough, you may have it."

  Suddenly his hand, which had been pulling on her hair so painfully, was cupped behind her head, and bringing her lips up to meet his. She would have screamed then, as his rotting mouth fastened itself on to hers, but his greeting was so insistent it quite took her breath away.

  Ryan found Diane on the floor of her dressing room a few minutes before two. It was difficult to work out what had happened. There was no sign of a wound of any kind on her head or body, nor was she quite dead. She seemed to be in a coma of some kind. She had perhaps slipped, and struck her head as she fell. Whatever the cause, she was out for the count.

  They were hours away from a Final Dress Rehearsal and Viola was in an ambulance, being taken into Intensive Care.

  "The sooner they knock this place down, the better," said Hammersmith. He'd been drinking during office hours, something Calloway had never seen him do before. The whisky bottle stood on his desk beside a half-full glass. There were glass-marks ringing his accounts, and his hand had a bad dose of the shakes.

  "What's the news from the hospital?"

  "She's a beautiful woman," he said, staring at the glass. Calloway could have sworn he was on the verge of tears.

  "Hammersmith? How is she?"

  "She's in a coma. But her condition is stable."

  "That's something, I suppose."

  Hammersmith stared up at Calloway, his erupting brows knitted in anger.

  "You runt," he said, "you were screwing her, weren't you? Fancy yourself like that, don't you? Well, let me tell you something, Diane Duvall is worth a dozen of you. A dozen!"

  "Is that why you let this last production go on, Hammersmith? Because you'd seen her, and you wanted to get your hot little hands on her?"

  "You wouldn't understand. You've got your brain in your pants." He seemed genuinely offended by the interpretation Calloway had put on his admiration for Miss Duvall.

  "All right, have it your way. We still have no Viola."

  "That's why I'm cancelling," said Hammersmith, slowing down to savour the moment.

  It had to come. Without Diane Duvall, there would be no Twelfth Night; and maybe it was better that way.

  A knock on the door.

  "Who the fuck's that?" said Hammersmith softly. "Come."

  It was Lichfield. Calloway was almost glad to see that strange, scarred face. Though he had a lot of questions to ask of Lichfield, about the state he'd left Diane in, about their conversation together, it wasn't an interview he was willing to conduct in front of Hammersmith. Besides, any half-formed accusations he might have had were countered by the man's presence here. If Lichfield ha
d attempted violence on Diane, for whatever reason, was it likely that he would come back so soon, so smilingly?

  "Who are you?" Hammersmith demanded.

  "Richard Walden Lichfield."

  "I'm none the wiser."

  "I used to be a trustee of the Elysium."

  "Oh."

  "I make it my business - "

  "What do you want?" Hammersmith broke in, irritated by Lichfield's poise.

  "I hear the production is in jeopardy," Lichfield replied, unruffled.

  "No jeopardy," said Hammersmith, allowing himself a twitch at the corner of his mouth. "No jeopardy at all, because there's no show. It's been cancelled."

  "Oh?" Lichfield looked at Calloway.

  "Is this with your consent?" he asked.

  "He has no say in the matter; I have sole right of cancellation if circumstances dictate it; it's in his contract. The theatre is closed as of today: it will not reopen."

  "Yes it will," said Lichfield.

  "What?" Hammersmith stood up behind his desk, and Calloway realized he'd never seen the man standing before. He was very short.

  "We will play Twelfth Night as advertised," Lichfield purred. "My wife has kindly agreed to understudy the part of Viola in place of Miss Duvall."

  Hammersmith laughed, a coarse, butcher's laugh. It died on his lips however, as the office was suffused with lavender, and Constantia Lichfield made her entrance, shimmering in silk and fur. She looked as perfect as the day she died: even Hammersmith held his breath and his silence at the sight of her.

  "Our new Viola," Lichfield announced.

  After a moment Hammersmith found his voice. "This woman can't step in at half a day's notice."

  "Why not?" said Calloway, not taking his eyes off the woman. Lichfield was a lucky man; Constantia was an extraordinary beauty. He scarcely dared draw breath in her presence for fear she'd vanish.

  Then she spoke. The lines were from Act V, Scene I:

  "If nothing lets to make us happy both

  But this my masculine usurp'd attire,

  Do not embrace me till each circumstance

  Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump

  That I am Viola."

  The voice was light and musical, but it seemed to resound in her body, filling each phrase with an undercurrent of suppressed passion.